Tonight
by blackbirdburners
Summary: As the city recovers from the Equalist Revolution, a renewed waterbender struggles to reinvent himself in a city that is changing as the Avatar once again returns to Republic City, ready to fulfill her duty to oversee the integration of nonbenders into bender society, and the deep schisms she finds between them. Based on prompts sent by readers. Skips around timelines. M on demand.


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**Tonight**

Prompt: "Huh. Fancy seeing you here."

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She watches him lean against the railing like she would a ship off at sea, his back silhouetted by the blaze of lights that make the city skyline, pondering him like he ponders his reflection in the ocean that begins beneath the Arena, still and immobile in a way that she never has let herself be before but can't help but be now. The humidity of the night chokes the sweat out of her skin, and she feels a sense of impatience gather and burn in her core, but mostly she wishes this dreadful summer would finally end. If Tahno hadn't asked her to stay in the city while it healed, she would have fled to the South Pole until the heat had passed. Republic City weather wasn't always kind to foreigners. Neither were its citizens.

Tahno loves it, though: the heat, the smell, the constant staccato of the streets that never stops at night in the summer, the smooth slide into winter that begins only slowly in October. He relishes cosmopolitan life, the good and the bad. When she looks at it through his eyes, she kind of understands it, even though it will never compare to the southern lights back home.

She focuses on him now with all of the past few months in mind, the training, the nights, the parties, and Mako simmering before her eyes. He's wearing his uniform, which always manages to shock her. He looks so much like the Tahno she remembered like this. The Tahno she fought. The Tahno that died when Amon placed his gloved thumb in the center of his forehead. It's so far from the man he is today she has to blink to shake the mirage of the Tahno of her memories. It makes her sick.

Tahno doesn't glance her way when she settles beside him, her arms resting on the railing next to his, focusing intently on the yellow that glosses the murky water beneath the platform. It's been a while since she honestly deserved a proper greeting. She's done enough to him without the extra agony of unnecessary pleasantries that he couldn't mean.

She doesn't need to study him from stolen glances. His gaze is angled and sharp, she knows, even without looking; it always is when he's thinking.

* * *

And he had a lot to think about tonight.

* * *

She still waits, though, until the silence spells out the fact she already knew: Tahno wasn't in the mood to speak first. Those days were over. She still tries, though.

"Huh. Fancy seeing you here." Korra says, counting the splay of eyelashes that dip and hide his irises. A joke, she thinks. Please take the joke. (But the corner of his lips twitches out of habit, not out of affection. She tries her best not to be offended.)

"It's right before the game, you know. Kind of my job to be here." Tahno says.

It's been two seconds and she's already run out of stuff to say. (Shit.) "Yeah, I know."

She can tell he's amused by her, neither friendly nor snide but reservedly present, but he doesn't say anything else. They listen to the flow of the water beneath them, lapping gently at the edge of the Arena. It's a peaceful echo, one they share once again, and she feels herself relax with the good memories.

"How did the other match go?" Tahno says, idle.

"Nothing interesting happened after you left. The Boar-Q-pines won, by the way." She says.

"Knockout?"

"Not even." She says, disgusted. "They just won more matches."

Tahno rolls his eyes; since getting back in the game, he's been more critical than the other team that usual. She supposed losing your bending when you're so good and then watch others be mediocre with it does that to you.

"Are you nervous?" She asks, watching his face carefully. His lips purse.

"No." He decides. "It's just a game."

A flat lie, and she knows it. "No, it's not. It's your first."

This was it. The first probending game since the Tournament, since the Revolution, his re-inauguration to his beloved sport. The weight of it hangs in the humidity between them, along with everything else that has drifted like storm clouds over this wretched summer. It is suffocating.

"Yeah." He says, brushing his hair to the side, his hands joined in front of him.

The silence doesn't stretch as much as it expands, swarming until it reaches even the outskirts of their reality and halting at the edge like fog against glass. She wishes the heat would go away so she could say what she needed to say without the dripping sweat to distract her. It doesn't.

Korra touches his arm, hoping he can really feel how much she means it. She struggles against the lump in her throat, three months in the making. "You're going to do great." She says. "I know it. You've earned it." She hopes this doesn't sound like another goodbye.

He smiles at her, fully, in a way he hasn't since three weeks before, turning his head to finally meet her eyes. "Thank you." She's aglow with joy, like his sudden acknowledgement was a landmine of change about to explode and reshape what was between them, when suddenly, his smile turns vicious. "Not that I needed encouragement. I know I'm going to kill."

She struggles to control her excitement, but it's impossible. Her tongue pokes out of her teeth, the game burning in her eyes. "I don't know, Pretty Boy. You don't have your little team of hairbenders to back you up this time, and in my experience, you don't exactly 'kill' on your own."

"Ah, but I've got Bolin on my side." Tahno drawls, sliding closer to her, the dreaded Fire Ferret sigil burning on his chest. It's the closest he's been to her since before. "And you."

"Me?" She asks. She's not fighting in the match today. She's not even in the Fire Ferrets anymore.

Tahno's side is pressed against hers now, the air around them charged. "You. After all, you're going to be rooting for me, right? My little cheerleader in the stands." He teases. "With the Avatar looking out for me, there's no way I can lose."

"What makes you think I'm rooting for you?" She says, petulant, but breathless. Tahno, _her _Tahno, was coming back to her. Only faint alarm bells rang in her head at how fast this was going.

_(Again)_

He leans closer, eyes flashing. "You're really rooting for the Red Sands Rabaroos?" He says, smiling down at her.

Korra huffs. "Maybe."

He laughs. "Oh, Uh-vatar. You really are adorable."

"I am not adorable!"

"You are." He teases, flicking her nose.

Korra is too dazed to bat his hand away, but she's still Korra, so she doesn't let it slide. "Well, you're a jerk."

"Yet you're still rooting for me." She knows better than to trust her mouth right now, or how close it's getting to his (_like a magnet_). "No matter what you say, you can't deny it. You like me."

"I haven't made up my mind." Korra says. She ignores her own wince at her poor choice of words; Tahno ignores it.

"Admit it Korra. You like me." He says, his tone deeper than before, the hesitant, blatant "still" ringing in the air around them.

"No I don't." Stop.

"Yes you do." Please.

"No I don't." She whispers, glaring at his stupid face, the recycled heat between them gripping. This wasn't something they had the luxury of arguing about anymore. "You're the worst."

"You love it." He says, his lips tight and wet, eyes dark and angry.

"I can't believe I came all the way out here just to keep you company." She says. "You're such a pain."

"Keep me company, huh?" He laughs. "I'd like to submit that as evidence of you liking me, please." Tahno says. He's gotten impossibly close, inches from her face, eyes searching hers. What he finds must be interesting, because he leans closer. The moment, fast and tumbling, slows to molasses. His eyes, still angry, are soft in their sentiment. "This, too." He whispers.

"And what is this?" She says. Leaning forward. Wetting her lips when she shouldn't.

He doesn't even need to answer her when they both already knew.

His lips slide over hers, his hand sliding beneath her wolftails to cup her head. Her hand lifts from the railing as if to rest on his cheek, but he catches it and keeps it in his hand, close to his heart. The sweat that had been gathering at her temple finally falls, slightly cooler than her burning skin as it falls down her cheek.

He pulls her from the railing, leaning lower to capture her lips more fully. Sucking at her bottom lip, slipping his tongue between her open lips, tracing the roof of her mouth—_like a dance, a game_—and she takes his upper lip between her teeth, pushing back against him as he pulls her is no space between them as she sweeps her tongue across his teeth; he wraps his arms around her tightly, and in his arms the heat is unbearable—

He's everywhere at once, and it's all she can do to keep him there.

He pulls away, and the liquid chill in the air, which once seemed so humid, rushes to fill the space between their lips. When she finally manages to open her eyes, his are a kaleidoscope, shifting emotions with shifting colors, and grey doesn't seem to be the word she's looking for. A grey kaleidoscope doesn't do them justice. His thumb traces her cheek, his voice soft and present on her cheek. "I missed this." He said then, and says now.

"Me too." She says, but no more.

He doesn't wait as much as he pauses, still except for his pulse under her hand. When he finally gathers his words, she already knows. "We can't keep doing this."

"The game." He says.

The game, she thinks bitterly. There was always a game. "I know."

"I have to go." He says, breathing heavy, as if even his breaths are reluctant to leave the charged atmosphere that had been built between them. Her eyes fall shut.

"I know."

"Tell me to not go." He whispers, voice breaking. She keeps her eyes closed, knowing she would break if they opened. "Tell me to stay."

She shakes her head, struggling to keep the tears from falling. "I can't do that to you. It's your night."

"That's not what I'm talking about." She feels him speak against her lips, his breaths like feathers against the skin.

"Tahno," she whispers, trying to find fire where there isn't. "I—

* * *

Prompts! Send more prompts, please! And thank you for reading!


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